Until science threatens political correctness. Research into human dna…
… is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, carrying with it the inescapable message that people of different races have different DNA. Ancestry tests tell customers what percent of their genes are from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. The heart-disease drug BiDil is marketed exclusively to African Americans, who seem genetically predisposed to respond to it. Jews are offered prenatal tests for genetic disorders rarely found in other ethnic groups.
Such developments are providing some of the first tangible benefits of the genetic revolution. Yet some social critics fear they may also be giving long-discredited racial prejudices a new potency. The notion that race is more than skin-deep, they fear, could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all created equal.
There isn’t an experienced domestic animal breeder on the planet who doesn’t acknowledge the profound influence of genetics on intelligence and behavior. Traits such as trainability, aggression, prey drive, docility, bite inhibition are highly heritable and difficult to modify. The realization that behavior could be selected for and fixed within a population is how breeds evolve out of species, and how identifiable family lines evolve out of breeds. It’s why retrievers retrieve, pointers point, border collies herd, and basenjis steal from the fridge. It’s why some family lines in Dobermans like to carry shoes in their mouths, generation after generation – and others don’t.
Yet, despite thousands of years of practical knowledge gained in the field of agriculture, despite mountains of published research generated in the lab, the very scientific community that accepts that animal sub-populations can be significantly distinct from one another is reflexively resistant to the possibility that that such differences may exist between sub-populations of humans.
And when the science finally forces them to face the evidence?
Although few of the bits of human genetic code that vary between individuals have yet been tied to physical or behavioral traits, scientists have found that roughly 10 percent of them are more common in certain continental groups, and can be used to distinguish people of different races. They say that studying the differences, which arose during the tens of thousands of years human populations evolved on separate continents following their ancestors’ dispersal from humanity’s birthplace in East Africa is crucial to mapping the genetic basis for disease.
Many geneticists are loath to discuss the social implications of their findings. Still, some acknowledge that as their data and methods are extended to non-medical traits, the field is at what one leading researcher recently called “a very delicate time and a dangerous time.”
“There are clear differences between people of different continental ancestries,” said Marcus Feldman, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University. “It’s not there yet for things like IQ, but I can see it coming. And it has the potential to spark a new era of racism if we do not start explaining it better.” Feldman said any finding on intelligence was likely to be exceedingly hard to pin down. But given that some may emerge, he wants to create “ready response teams” of geneticists to put such socially fraught discoveries in perspective.
They should consider augmenting such teams with a dog breeder or two. We seem to have figured out how to identify and exploit genetic strengths and weaknesses “beneath the skin” without assigning global superiority to any one breed. We might be able to teach them something.
ahh, yes, phantom; you are indeed a ‘gotcha devil’.
I agree with you on your rejection of Dawkins (and Wilson).
However, a random imagination process – brainstorming – isn’t the same thing as a process connected to the other cognitive processes. Your idea of a ‘brainstorming’ style of imagination is, however, interesting. There’s something ‘abductive’ (Peircean term) about it. But I think that the imaginative faculty, to be valid, must not be random but linked to actual experience.
I’ve an acquaintance, who works in AI, who does think that the human brain operates as a Turing machine – and yet – one of his key requirements for ‘human cognition’ is emotion. He even defines certain languages as more conducive to ‘feeling emotional’ than others…Can a computer do this?
I like Penrose’s books but am bothered by what I feel is his idealism, he’s a Platonist and I run from that mode of thought.
The AI field is enormous, open – who knows what these scientists will come up with!? It’s already a phenomenal change from ten years ago…
Hoss – you talking about me or her?
ET – existence is insufficient justification to assert that the universe be a CAS. One must demonstrate not only that the requisite coupling mechanisms exist, but also that they have the necessary temporal elasticity. In my view, this requires ahierarchical structure across all the relevant scales of the system, else the likelihood of phase transitions would approach unity.
Hah. All we got is supposition. A real CAS (bootstrap variety – no intelligent agents presupposed at onset) has never been robustly demonstrated. Its existence is approached in Sherlockian fashion, leaving us with the “but WHY does it work?” plaintive wail overwhelmed by the grumble, mutter, and bicker of arguing HOW it works.
Oh, I’m still sort of trying, using coupled quantum dots and nanotech, but I would be astonished if true CAS properties result.
Madame speaker, ladies and gentlemen ~ I rise on a point of order. At 14:41 above, Andrew wrote: “[..] the onus is on the anti-science faction like […] Vitruvius […] and others to explain why they are actively persecuting white heterosexual males […]”. Let the record show that I hereby accuse Andrew of two counts of criminal libel.
And I accuse you of genocide. Now that we’re done making accusations, my Nuremburg Law supporting friend, who has the best data? I do, now piss off.
the difference is snarly
To whomever it applies.
Further to ET’s notes on signing and the differences in the cognitive capabilities of humans v. dog &c, y’all may be interested in the Aping Language essay by Clive Wynne at the Skeptic magazine – http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-10-31.html#feature – which concludes:
“Somewhere in the history of our kind there must have been the first beings who could rearrange tokens to create new meanings, to distinguish Me Banana from Banana Me. But the evidence from many years of training apes to press buttons or sign in ASL, is that this must have happened sometime after we split off from chimps, bonobos, and gorillas. Since then we have been talking to ourselves.”
Um, what’s a CAS?
Complex adaptive system, if memory serves.
Actually, for a cursory overview, the Wikipedia page doesn’t seem overly problematic to me: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system
Ah, good. I shall Google!
ET is the resident and internationally known expert on this stuff, Phantom, yet as I am a student of the phenomenon, I think you may find interesting this From Steam Engines to Life? essay by Mark Haw, on the 100th anniversary of the death of Lord Kelvin, in the current issue of the American Scientist magazine – tinyurl.com/29t5pj – which concludes:
“[This] brings us back to microscopic engines: the most interesting objects in which the two themes of modern thermodynamics — microscopic scales and open systems — join. Although studies of individual proteins are important foundation stones, the cell depends on millions of molecules in a complex network of machines, their functions interlocked across a range of scales. Such interplay is possible precisely because these living engines are open to fluctuations and not isolated from their environment. It may be that the complex functions of matter that we call life are nothing more than this multiscale interplay of engines, a network through which energy is transformed again and again, as microscopic machines swap and shift matter—manipulate entropy — in a thermodynamical cycle the likes of which Kelvin could hardly have imagined.
“If so, then the theory that accommodates living engines will require both a thermodynamics of microscopic matter, and a thermodynamics of open systems. Current research is providing progress in each of these, but the challenge may be to match them together, to join the palpable chemical reality of protein engines to the heady concepts of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and self-organization. That may lead us, finally, to the second revolution—the thermodynamics of life.
“Kelvin’s theory of thermodynamics was only one product of his long, intensely curious life. At retirement, he declared that despite half a century of work he felt he understood little more about the nature of the physical world than he had all those years ago, staring down at the water of the Walsall canal. Now, a century after his death, the science of thermodynamics that Kelvin pioneered is indeed more puzzling, more profound, more tantalizing, more practically relevant, and just plain more fascinating, than ever.”
ET, if I’m reading your position correctly, you aren’t saying that there are no physiological differences between humans of different ethnicities. I assume you don’t deny that, for example, certain medications have greater efficacy for certain racial/gender groups, or that different ethnic groups might thrive on different diets, or tolerate heat or cold better, or that people of West African descent are massively over-represented at the finish line of 100m foot races. As far as I can tell, you are instead asserting that these physiological differences somehow — miraculously — completely exclude the brain and it’s cognitive functions because….you say so. To the extent that you do acknowledge other known physiological differences, it’s a highly unreasonable position.
I think a big part of the problem with this debate — and this applies far less to you than to others — is that the mere thought of possible differences becomes a political pejorative in exact proportion to the extent to which one of the particular groups cited somehow in the data might be considered socio-economically disadvantaged or the victims of racism both at present and in the past. Were that inflamed group-politics reaction removed from the equation, there’d be no need for people to get so defensive about possible differences. There are many different forms of human intelligence, and nobody’s got all of them; difference isn’t inherently bad when you’re not coming from a position of taking insult. If Danes, say, were told, based on solid evidence — eg twin studies of adoptees that control for environmental causes — that Jews of Hungarian descent, say, had, on average, much better math/spatial abilities than Danes, the reaction from the Danes would probably be — trust me — “Yaah, I kinda tot so…” Whereas if it were revealed that Caucasian babies raised from birth by blacks had, on average, better spatial/math ability than blacks from the same household, all hell would break loose; the data would suddenly become entirely political, and no matter how solid it was, the motives of the scientists and those who cite them would become the issue. Science would be completely swallowed by identity-group politics and social-justice concerns.
I personally consider Theolonius Monk a genius of the highest order, and I find his music to be the a brilliant, limbic comment on the last century in a way that’s ineffable and undeniable (to me). To me, he’s a towering genius. If someone proved to me that, say, Chinese kids were predisposed by genetics to be more adept than black kids at, say, solving a Rubik’s cube in twelve seconds, it wouldn’t case me to look differently at Monk or at Black people; listening to Duke Ellington doesn’t make me look down on Glen Gould, or vice versa, and listening to Arthur Rubenstein’s interpretation of Chopin’s Nocturnes doesn’t make me look down on F.W. McGhee and Arizona Dranes when I hear them carrying the ceremonial mace for all mankind through the pit of hell belting out “Fifty Miles of Elbow Room.”
If certain differences in physiology between different genetic populations are more closely understood, these findings could either inflame people — stupid people — or they could prove helpful — in medicine, for example. If different aptitudes were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, so what? Is it really the end of the earth? Certain people would surely make stupid, overreaching, non-comprehending, badly-mistaken pronouncements which will reveal nothing but their own ignorance, but even if 99% of people took that approach, neither their mistaken interpretation, nor their numbers, would obviate the science.
ET, I think that to acknowledge physiological differences but then miraculously exclude the brain seems a rather pointed act of denial.
It’s not for me to speak for ET, EBD, yet I think “miraculously exclude the brain” is likely to be reasonably judged as putting words in her mouth 😉
Moreover, I should like to note that, as with my comment re Jay’s comment much above, I think your comment is brilliantly argued, EBD.
One of the problems with taking up a position in any debate is that, unless one is acting solely as a reporter of all positions, one ends up not devoting sufficient resources to other opinions that one nevertheless agrees with. Thank you for making those arguments so well.
A thermodynamics of life – now that, vitruvius, is a fascinating idea. I do wish, however, that the author wouldn’t use mechanical metaphors in his description….
EBD – yes, I am pointedly denying that there is a cognitive difference between groups and also between subgroups. And I don’t think that there are physiological differences among ‘ethnicities’ but amongst families or sub-sub groups in a larger ethnic group. That is, one cannot say that “ALL Italians are genetically disposed to X”, but one can certainly say that “this familial cluster of Italians are genetically disposed to X”.
The Nilotic sub-group of the black-skinned group in Africa do have a particular physiology – as do other groups in Africa – and elsewhere.
But, I don’t subscribe to a cognitive difference. There is no proof of this. You see, all groups, subgroups and sub-subgroups, reveal similar cognitive facilities.
If we are speaking of isolate groups, then, we can see that all have developed symbolic language; all have developed stable and productive economies; all have developed moral, ethical, legal and political and educational systems; all have developed ‘origin’ analyses, etc. These social structures were sufficient for that society.
What proof do you have that there is a difference in cognitive ability amongst different groups? Come now – you aren’t surely declaring that ALL or even MOST Hungarian Jews have better math/spatial abilities than ALL/Most Danes? You must know that isn’t valid.
Your Caucasian-black household example isn’t valid, because cognitive faculties can be inherited from FAMILIAL gene lines. NOT ETHNIC or GROUP LINES. So, artistic ability can run in a family. Not in an ETHNICITY or GROUP. And, mathematical ability can run in a family. Not in an ETHNICITY or GROUP. You’d get a more valid study if you had two children from the same parents, raised in two different households – one that promoted intelligence and one that demeaned it.
Physiology is completely different from cognition; the first is far simpler than the latter. I simply don’t see any proof that, although there are very real physiological differences amongst sub-groups and sub-subgroups of the species,..that these same groups also have different cognitive faculties.
There ARE different cognitive faculties in the one species, but, I don’t see them as correlated with physiology.
Where does arachnophobia fit into thermodynamics of life or CAS?
High up on the list, Ural, high up on the list.
It seems to me that the key point you are making, ET, and I stand to be corrected as I have no desire to put words in your mouth, is that while there are multiplicities of differences between various taxonomical categorizations of H. Sapiens Sapiens, nevertheless, there is no significant difference within the species, at least as measured by those taxonomies, in terms of our cognitive commonality. If so, I agree, and, indeed, I think that it is that cognitive commonality that should be the judge of the morality of our behaviour.
Taxonomies whew for a brief moment I thought you wrote Taxidermy and was trying to figure out why ET was stuffing dead humans.
vitruvius – as usual, with your logophilic agility and wit and wisdom, you’ve outlined my points better than I’ve done. Perfect. I fully agree with your outline. Thanks.
Not all races are equal, some are inferior.
Jewish Nobel Prize Winners
From a pool of 12 million Jews which are 0.2% of the World’s Population
Between 1901 and 2007, more than 750 Nobel Prizes were handed out. Of these, at least 162 are Jews.
Arab/Islamic Nobel Prize Winners
From a pool of 1.4 BILLION Muslims which are 20% of the world’s population, there were 6 including
Literature1988 – Najib Mahfooz
Peace1978 – Anwar El-Sadat
1994 – Yasser Arafat *
2003 – Shirin Ebadi
Chemistry1999 – Ahmed Zewail
Physics-Abdus Salam
It is an honour to be of assistance, ET, but I still don’t agree with you on the explorative values of carefully titrated neuropsychopharmaceuticals 😉
While we’re on the topic of the nature of humanity, I see where the news wires are now reporting that Chavez said today, “A snake is more human”. Apparently King Juan Carlos then turned to Chavez and said, “Why don’t you shut up?”
Who says blogs aren’t like real life?
Cognitive commonality?
No – common humanity. Our moral association with other people is not to be prefaced by any qualifiers. Dumb as dipsh*t, braindead or bright – make no distinction!
Once I was like Andrew. The bodycount grew. SomeOne said enough.
ET – “NOT ETHNIC or GROUP LINES”?
You are not paying attention to Kate. Now, if you want to argue that humans are special? Perhaps made in the image of God?
One of these day, ET, you and I are going to go at the CAS issue hammer and tongs. When I have time to visit…
Common humanity yes, Tenebris, but what is it that distinguishes our human commonality from all other forms of commonality we know of? It is our common cognitive uniqueness. Individuals of no other species, on their death bed, ask themselves the cognitive quesion, “Did I live a moral life?” That’s how we distinguish ourselves from other forms of life. That’s why cognitive is a valid qualifier.
And while neither hammers nor tongs are complex adaptive systems, I’d love to attend your colloquium 😉
This business of a significant difference between races, as in a noticeable one, is the core of the matter. You don’t see any noticeable differences in the archaeological record until you get all the way back to Neanderthal.
One striking thing about Humans is we always build the fire in the same spot in a dwelling. It never moves, for generations. This fixed spot is the same for Homo Sapiens, uniformly, from now all the way back. Cultures change, but The Fireplace is always The Fireplace.
Neanderthals didn’t do that. They would build the fire anywhere, different spots all the time. They didn’t have The Fireplace, they just has a fire.
That’s the kind of significant, immediately discernible difference you DON’T see between human populations, tribes, races, whatever.
Therefore no matter what the variations between individuals and groups in neurochemicals, brain structures and etc., these don’t amount to a significant thing that alters one group’s Humanity compared to another group. Because if it did, it would be so up in your face there would be no mistaking it.
Leaving me really wanting to slap the imbeciles in Kate’s article, frankly. WTF!
Unless you’re screening for Tay-Sachs or Sickle Cell. Amd what does any of that have to do with “altering one group humanity”?
The same inherited behavioral traits that impede a beagles aptitude as a retriever don’t “alter his breed’s caninity”.
And I don’t think the people mentioned in the article are ‘imbeciles”. They’re simply facing some very uncomfortable prospects – that the conventional, politically correct, wisdom that all humans are “created equal” may soon be challenged on a variety of genetic fronts. They want to prepare for it, and I can’t say that I blame them.
I’ve only pointed out that it’s not going to come as news to animal breeders who have observed and manipulated genes for behavior and intelligence within species long before Mendel – much less molecular genetics – came on the scene.
Kate: …how do you square those statements against the fact as a result of this type of research, we already have heart medications marketed exclusively to African Americans?
The following article may be of interest…
*****
Misreading race and genomics after BiDil
Jonathan Kahn
Nature Genetics, 37: 655-656 (2005).
On June 16, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee will decide whether to approve a drug to treat heart failure in African Americans, and only African Americans. This race-specific drug is called BiDil. BiDil is not a new drug. It is merely a combination into a single pill of two existing generic drugs that have been used to treat heart failure irrespective of race for more than a decade.
BiDil is noteworthy because it may become the first race-specific drug ever approved by the FDA. The good news is that BiDil does seem to help many people suffering from heart failure, a debilitating and ultimately fatal disease afflicting several million Americans. Less fortunate is the way race has been exploited to bring this drug to market.
The FDA approval of BiDil for only African Americans would give the federal government’s stamp of approval to using race, in effect, as a genetic category. But race is not genetic, as even the BiDil researchers admit. Once we sanction such talk, it is a short step to talking about races as inferior and superior. Given our nation’s troubled history of racial oppression, this should not be taken lightly.
In fact, the data from the clinical trial of BiDil (called A-HeFT, for African American Heart Failure Trial) says nothing about whether BiDil works differently or better in African Americans than anyone else. This is because A-HeFT enrolled only “self-identified” African Americans; there was no comparison population1, 2.
Why then did NitroMed, the corporate sponsor of the A-HeFT trials and holder to the rights to BiDil, seek race-specific approval for its drug? Perhaps the answer lies not in medicine but in commerce. NitroMed holds a patent for a non-race-specific use of BiDil, which expires in 2007; it also holds a race-specific patent that lasts until 2020. This extra 13 years of patent protection may present a compelling commercial reason for seeking to cast BiDil as a racial drug, even though to do so is not supported by the medical evidence3.
The dynamic relation between markets and the skewed interpretation of clinical trial data has recently moved beyond BiDil to support larger claims about the legitimacy of developing race-specific drugs, including misrepresentation of results published in this journal4 (Box 1). Garbled reports of these results were almost invariably paired with a discussion of the nearly contemporaneous formal announcement of the A-HeFT results for BiDil. The linking of BiDil to the “29 medicines” is not accidental. They are paired to give the impression that there is some ‘real’ difference underlying racial response to these drugs.
In fact, of the 29 medicines identified, Tate and Goldstein considered only 4 to provide evidence of a genetic cause for the differential drug response and only an additional 9 to provide evidence that “the association has a reasonable underlying physiological basis.” For the remaining 16 medicines, Tate and Goldstein found either no demonstration of a physiological basis to any observed difference or possibly false positive claims. Moreover, of the 13 medicines with some supporting evidence of racial difference, three were ACE inhibitors, whose claims of racial difference have been hotly contested in the professional literature4, and one was BiDil4. All 13 dealt with hypertension, and the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks has issued guidelines arguing against race-specific treatment of hypertension5.
One might dismiss the distortion of the paper by Tate and Goldstein as mere sloppy journalism. But the use, or misuse, of the “29 medicines” statistic has been embraced in more expert and often more conservative circles. Prominent here are John Entine and Sally Satel, both fellows at the American Enterprise Institute. Both have gained a good deal of notoriety for their popular works of race and genetics: Entine for his book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We are Afraid to Talk About It6, and Satel for, among other writings, a prominent article titled “I am a racially profiling doctor”7. Not only do Entine and Satel omit any reference to Tate and Goldstein’s qualifying analysis, but they also extend the purported connection between race and drug response into the realm of genetics. BiDil provides the starting point for this move toward identifying race with genetic difference, a difference that the A-HeFT investigators themselves do not make.
This marks a critical moment of reification of race as genetic8. By connecting BiDil to the manipulated “29 medicines” statistic, Satel and Entine cast BiDil as the poster drug for the future of addressing racial difference in medicine. Entine’s and Satel’s message is that race and genetics correlate closely enough to provide the basis not only for general medical practice but also for addressing specific health disparities; remember that these discussions are also indirectly being framed by the misleading assumption that A-HeFT proved that BiDil worked differently in African-Americans. The related message is that the correlation also provides the basis for market-driven pharmaceutical development to produce new drugs such as BiDil to address these differences.
This is where reification in the context of medical practice intersects with broader strategies regarding commerce and the politics of difference. At work here is an appropriation of race as reified in the BiDil story to serve larger political agendas aimed at transmuting health disparities, rooted in social and economic inequality, into mere health differences, rooted in biology and genetics. Attempts to address social disparity generally implicate the power of the state or other nonmarket institutions consciously to intervene both in the allocation of resources and the sanctioning of racist practices. In contrast, attempts to address genetic difference may be located at the level of the molecule and targeted by pharmaceuticals developed and dispensed through the purportedly impersonal forces of the market. Implicit in the logic of conservatives such as Satel and Entine, who use BiDil to characterize disparate health outcomes in terms of genetics, is an argument for privatizing efforts to address what are currently characterized as health disparities.
The story of BiDil raises concerns over the dangers of reifying race in a manner that could lead to new forms of discrimination. BiDil, however, is part of a much larger dynamic of reification in which the purported reality of race as genetic is used to obscure the social reality of racism. For all the legitimate concerns that the genomics revolution might lead to new forms of discrimination, we must also be alert to the potential appropriation of genetics to obscure or justify existing inequalities.
REFERENCES
1. Kahn, J. Ethnic drugs. Hastings Center Report (January/February 2005).
2. Taylor, A. et al. Combination of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine in blacks with heart failure. N. Engl. J. Med. 351, 2049–2057 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Kahn, J. How a drug becomes ‘ethnic’: law, commerce, and the production of racial categories in medicine. Yale J. Health Policy Law Ethics 4, 1–46 (2004). | PubMed |
4. Tate, S.K. & Goldstein, D.B. Will tomorrow’s medicines work for everyone? Nat. Genet. Suppl., S36–S37 (2004).
5. Moore, J. Hypertension treatment among blacks: should it be different? Today in Cardiology (October 2003).
6. Entine, J. Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We are Afraid to Talk About It (PublicAffairs, New York, 2001).
7. Satel, S. I am a racially profiling doctor. New York Times Magazine (5 May 2002).
8. Duster, T. Enhanced: race and reification in science. Science 307, 1050–1051 (2005). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
9. Maugh, T. Drug for blacks only stirs hope, concern. Los Angeles Times (9 November 2004).
10. Ahuja, A. We can treat your heart disease … if you’re black. Times of London (29 October 2004).
11. Editorial. Toward the first racial medicine. New York Times (13 November 2004).
12. Anonymous. Racial diversity in drug trials can produce breakthroughs. USA Today (14 November 2004).
13. Satel, S. Race and medicine can mix without prejudice: How the story of BiDil illuminates the future of medicine. Medical Progress Today (10 December 2004).
I agree Kate, that’s why Lincoln didn’t say equal, he said equal upon principle, and, I would and have argued, that principle is our unique cognitive commonality.
My honest thanks Kate for putting up with our “extended debates”, as the notice notes. I hope that the quality thereof has been sufficient to earn the karma points required to offset thereto.
Good night, everyone, best wishes, I leave you with the words of Albert Einstein, who said, “Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves”.
Also, as there will never be a universal and singular definition of what constitutes human “intelligence,” there will never be a universal and singular measure of IQ, and hence there will never be any irrefutable and direct link drawn between either of these constructions and bits of genetic code. There will surely be proxy indicators, but such instruments will necessarily ignore some facets of human capacity that, but for a different context and/or different observers, would very likely be judged as constituting a form of intelligence.
“One striking thing about Humans is we always build the fire in the same spot in a dwelling…That’s the kind of significant, immediately discernible difference you DON’T see between human populations, tribes, races, whatever. ”
The Andamanese Negritos and Tasmanian aborigines didn’t even learn how to make fire well into the 19th and 20th centuries, while their contemporaries were making nuclear weapons. You have no idea what your are talking about.
Kate said: “The same inherited behavioral traits that impede a beagles aptitude as a retriever don’t “alter his breed’s caninity”.
That’s true. But its not what I meant. What I mean is that you don’t see differences that large between human “breeds”. Its possible the neural structures might be subtly different but you don’t see that showing up in different abilities like you do in dogs.
It seems (to me anyway) that dogs are much more closely coupled to their neurology than humans, given the brain damage cases I was mentioning earlier.
So yes there are differences between populations, but no they don’t make any noticeable difference.
Hence my discontent with people who should know to do an External Reality Check when they have a theory. “If this is true, what would we see on the ground?” Guys that don’t get the concept “Fireplace”, that’s what. Guys that don’t get the concept of number. We don’t see that except with massive brain damage.
So Lincoln was right. All men are not created equal, but close enough for government work. ~:D
But speaking of retrievers, why do they always steal your socks? When my retriever was alive nobody in the house could wear socks because he’d steal them right off your feet and run away with them.
Humans have had fire since before we were human, Andrew. Stop wasting my time.
What I mean is that you don’t see differences that large between human “breeds”.
Who are the farmers in the world?
Agreed, phantom. The cognitive difference between the human and non-human animal species is that the knowledge base of homo sapiens is not stored genetically. It is learned. Therefore, you can’t selectively breed for it, as you can with dogs or other animals.
This external site of storage of knowledge is the key to the manipulative skills of our species. As an external site, this also means that we can change our knowledge base. Animals can’t do this very easily; it requires selective breeding because that knowledge is genetic rather than conceptual.
My point is that this cognitive apparatus is similar and common to all members of our species. There is no ‘group differentiation’. There is most certainly individual differentiation across a common scale (let’s say, in any given population, from about 85-125)with further variants less common.
This common cognitive apparatus can’t be linked to physiological differences; because cognition doesn’t rely on physiology; that is, the knowledge base of our species doesn’t involve our physiology. The cognitive apparatus is basic in that it enables all members of this species to ‘conceptualize’, ie, to develop a symbolic language, to develop and store knowledge, to anticipate and plan.
Differences in technology are factors of the developed knowledge base and have nothing to do with any ‘innate intellectual skills’. And the knowledge base of a society is directly related to its economic self-sufficiency.
If the area in which you live has thin soil, and inadequate rainfall, then you aren’t going to develop a deep plough technology. You may, however, develop the tactics of burning the vegetation to provide ash nutrients. If there aren’t any horses or other animals to domesticate, then, your economy will be based around hunting/gathering. That’s life. We are all ‘smart men’.
Farming is an invention Ol’ Hoss. First seen in Iraq of all places. Prior to 10,000 years ago nobody farmed, or at least not on a scale where the evidence survived archaeologically. You can tell by the way the village architectures changed. Grain storage is bulky, right?
10,000 years is a very short time in population genetics. If you took a Sumerian farm boy from 9K BC and dumped him in Nebraska, he’d be no worse off than the Somalians getting dumped in Nebraska these days. Give the guy a year and he’d be speaking English and driving a pickup truck, happy as hell to be in America. Prob’ly be a NASCAR fan in two years.
Cultures change, humans don’t. At least, not as far as anyone can tell.
Farming is an invention Ol’ Hoss. First seen in Iraq of all places.
You don’t say? heh
Odd, isn’t it, how only one race excels at farming to the point there’s surplus to feed the world?
I don’t know if I agree with that ET. The dog has a genetically based inclination to be a sock thief, but you can train him not to. Or circumstances can, if there’s no humans around. Dogs learn.
My (somewhat fuzzy) thinking is that humans take learning to the point where it trumps brain structure, and in fact drives that structure. Neuro PT is based on the idea of things growing back due to exercising affected limbs and whatnot. I’ve seen that happen. Psychiatry is based on literally talking yourself out of a chemically based mental illness. You actually change the brain chemistry by talking and imagining, on purpose.
What I wonder about is, if you grew a dog brain circuit for circuit on a chip, would it act like a dog? Maybe Tenebris can get something popping with his quantum dots.
Imagination as a key marker?
Everyone involved in this thread, must see this:
darren brown, subliminal advertising.
youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg
phantom – farming is not an ‘invention’. In fact, researchers don’t really know what started agriculture, defined as the domestication of plants and animals. I used to teach my students the ‘five basic theories’ – and tell them that we didn’t know.
All we know is that about 10,000 years ago, in certain parts of the world, primarily in the ME, we see domestication of plants and animals. This change from hunting/gathering rests, not on invention, but on ecology.
There had been a climate change – a change in temperature and rainfall patterns. That enabled different plants to develop – ones that could be domesticated.
You can’t, for example, easily develop agriculture in most of Africa. You can’t domesticate the large African herbivores; you certainly don’t want to domesticate the carnivores! These are the animals of the great grasslands. Therefore, the economy that developed was hunting/gathering. However, some domestication of grains developed in Africa (Bantu). And later, domestication of cattle (Masai, Nuer, Dinka).
You can’t domesticate plants or animals in the rainforests. Or in the near-deserts. There are serious problems with soil, with water, with temperature and climate in most of Africa. That’s why agriculture didn’t readily develop there and why it developed in the early Middle East.
The same ecological problems existed in America; most of the animals couldn’t be domesticated. However, in N. America, the natives domesticated grains (Iroquois, Huron). In S. and C. America, there was a problem with water, but this was dealt with by irrigation (Inca, Aztec, Mayan).
So, ol hoss, the first thing you have to do when exploring the history of mankind, is look at what he’s got to work with. The environment. Is the soil fertile, thin and subject to erosion, or thick and able to produce several crops a year? What’s the source of water – rainfall, or no rains, or only seasonal rains, or too much rain, or rivers. Or requiring irrigation? What’s the climate? Temperate? Harsh winters and summers? Too hot, too cold?
Technology can’t readily overcome reality – and when considering the history of man, we must never ignore ecology.
Nothing to do with ‘race’. It’s all about the ecology. Did you know that the most arable land base, with the best source of water (regular rainfall), the best and most even of temperatures, the richest soil – is only found in Western Europe? Now- is that bounty due to ‘race’ or to the realities of the natural ecology?
ET, the spread of agriculture is closely linked to haplogroups J, O3, and E(i.e. is genetic), read on:
********************************
Around 8,000 years ago (Map 3), the Neolithic peoples of the Middle East that had developed the new technology of agriculture began moving into Europe. There were several haplogroups involved, mainly E3b, F, J2 and G2.
These Neolithic haplogroups came in several waves over time and are found predominantly along the Mediterranean coast. Around 20% of the present-day population are from these Neolithic haplogroups. What is interesting to note is that the agricultural technology spread much further than the people who first ‘invented’ it.
A little later, around 4,500 years ago, Haplogroup N3 began moving across from west of the Ural mountains. Haplogroup N3 follows closely the spread of the Finno-Ugric languages.
http://www.dnaheritage.com/masterclass2.asp
Haplogroup J* is generally considered one of the prominent lineages that was part of the Neolithic spread of agriculture into Europe from the Near East beginning approximately 10,000 years ago.
http://www.kerchner.com/haplogroups-mtdna.htm
As a result of the historical migrations of the agricultural Bantu that started ca. 3000 BC, E3a is the most frequent Y-haplogroup in Sub-Saharan Africa today. It is also the most common Y-haplogroup among African American men.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E_(Y-DNA)
To begin to better
understand how the succession and magnitude of events
spanning millennia have contributed to the current genetic
composition of Turkey, we have assessed patterns of Y-chromosome
diversity distributed across Turkey plus Istanbul.
The data illuminate numerous long-standing themes, including
the Holocene expansions, contributions of agriculturalists
to the European gene pool and genetic assessment of
Caucasian and Central Asian gene flows.
hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HG_2004_v114_p127-148.pdf
M122: China’s Rice Farmers
Time of Emergence: 20-25,000 years ago, expansion within last 10,000 years
Place of Origin: China
Your genetic trail ends with a marker that arose within the last 10,000 years. The ancestral male who gave rise to marker M122 was probably born in China.
The widespread distribution of this man’s descendants—more than half of Chinese men—strongly suggests that the spread of your ancestors was closely tied to the spread of agriculture. Members of haplogroup O3 may well be the descendants of China’s first rice farmers.
The development of rice agriculture in East Asia led to a large population expansion. Archaeological evidence for the spread of rice agriculture to Japan, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia parallels the genetic data and suggests that a unique population carrying this marker expanded and spread throughout the region.
The pattern of settlement and intense exploitation of a few plant species was similar to, and occurred at around the same time, as the spread of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Archaeological sites in northern China show evidence of millet (a wheatlike grain) cultivation beginning around 7,000 years ago. Rice farming had reached Indonesia’s islands of Borneo and Sumatra by 4,000 years ago, and today O3 lineages are found as far afield as Polynesia.”
cvjugo.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-genetic-history-paternal-side.html
Nothing to do with ‘race’. It’s all about the ecology. Did you know that the most arable land base, with the best source of water (regular rainfall), the best and most even of temperatures, the richest soil – is only found in Western Europe? Now- is that bounty due to ‘race’ or to the realities of the natural ecology?
Farmers migrate to where the farmable land is found. Odd, though, that the US and Canada aren’t included in your “best farming region”, yet manage to feed the rest of the world.
Your argument is the same one leftists use when they pass off Alberta’s wealth as being luck of the draw.
Even the friggin New York Times (!!!) has bought into Extreme Genetics as evidenced by this timely article in today’s edition. ET, you don’t believe that the NYT is part of some conspiracy, do you?
In DNA Era, New Worries About Prejudice
By AMY HARMON
Published: November 11, 2007
Scientists, for instance, have recently identified small changes in DNA that account for the pale skin of Europeans, the tendency of Asians to sweat less and West Africans’ resistance to certain diseases.
At the same time, genetic information is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, carrying with it the inescapable message that people of different races have different DNA. Ancestry tests tell customers what percentage of their genes are from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. The heart-disease drug BiDil is marketed exclusively to African-Americans, who seem genetically predisposed to respond to it. Jews are offered prenatal tests for genetic disorders rarely found in other ethnic groups.
…
Last month, a blogger in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11dna.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/H/Harmon,%20Amy&_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1194811594-jyxSqagoSA+xMHQXM/v8eQ
ol hoss – no, farmers aren’t genetically born, so, they don’t ‘migrate’ to arable land. You must first, as I said, deal with ecological reality.
We don’t know exactly what prompted the first domestication of plants and animals. We only know that it began about 10,000 years ago – and our species has been around for many thousands of years longer than that. We know that there was a climate change; we know that domestication began in the ME area.
We know that climate change, a warming, opened up Western Europe to farming at a later time. And further warming opened up more areas – such as in the irrigation areas (Central America, China, Egypt)which began to emerge about 5,000 BCE.
You are completely ignoring what I said about ecology. North America had no domesticated animals. That’s a serious problem, not only for food supply (milk and meat from cattle) but also for energy. No horses or oxen. Don’t ignore the very serious problems of America with its lack of domesticated animals. The ones we have now, were all brought from Europe.
It also has other climate problems. The central prairies have seasonal rather than regular rainfall and severe temperature fluctuations. You ever heard of the dust bowls of the thirties? That was caused by trying to use Western Europe farming technology in an ecological area unsuited for it.
The horticultural domestication of grains took place in the Eastern US/Canada – and enabled the Huron and Iroquois to develop large populations with complex social organization. But again, no domesticated animals. They still relied on hunting.
What enabled the US and Canada to develop their grain production, was the devt of industrial techniques for farming – including irrigation. This development would not have occurred ‘on its own’; the Western European people brought with them domesticated animals (horses, cattle, sheep) and plough agriculture etc. And, they had to learn to adapt both animals and plants to the N. American ecology.
No, my argument has nothing to do with Alberta oil. But – one cannot ignore this planet’s ecology. No matter how hard you work, you can’t have cattle in a rain forest; you can’t grow wheat in a rain forest. You can’t grow wheat in the arctic. If there are no animals that can be domesticated in your domain, you can’t have such food resources available to you. That’s call reality. Not leftism.
Haha, ET lists points disagreeing with her religion, and says I’m wrong.
As ET points out, the Caucasian race are farmers. Have always farmed. Everyone living close to the land knows it’s an innate thing from generation to generation. Also why most Caucasions with city jobs instinctively want to move from city to suburbs to acreages wherever possible.
ET: Greenhouse?
I respectfully disagree with your view regarding agriculture as not being an invention.
There is a world of difference, technologically speaking, between gathering wild grains and Sumerian-style intensive agriculture. As I mentioned, you can tell when local agriculture became the main source of food by the way the architecture changes. Architecture is a technology. Grain storage is a technology. Reaping, threshing, baking, beer making, are technologies. Somebody figured that stuff out, once upon a time.
Who did it, why and how, that is certainly a matter of conjecture. Tell you what though, the first guy who ever plowed a field by hand probably started thinking about tying an animal to that plow.
phantom – my reference to agriculture not being an ‘invention’ means that it’s not an individual’s idea. It isn’t something like a patented artifact, created/invented by an individual. It is more understandable as a communal development as an adaptation to changing environmental realities. Same with other technologies – they really are communal developments rather than individual ‘inventions’.
No, ol hoss, the economic mode has nothing to do with ‘race’. The ‘Caucasians’ were not always farmers; at one time, they too were hunters/gatherers. The economic mode is directly related to the ecological realities of the envt. You ignore this. Too bad.
And no, the guy who dug a field with a stick (called ‘horticulture’) didn’t necessarily think about an animal tied to that stick. First, there’d have to be a domestic animal! Not available in Africa and America. Oh, and deep plough agriculture is only possible in deep rich soils…so….
I completely agree with you about the architecture. After all, once your economy turns to domesticated plants and animals – you move from a nomadic to a settled mode of life. That’s completely different; you have to build stable homes. And yes, you need pots to store seeds for next year’s planting; pots to store surplus for various uses. The agricultural technological devt is quite something…
Another interesting architectural entity- and I’ve never been able to explain it – but, irrigation agricultural societies all build high vertical structures of worship. Egypt, Inca, Aztect, Mayan. Very strange. None of them would have been in communication with each other.
All of them required massive irrigation technologies to deal with serious water problems. All of them were able to support large populations, with the majority of the populations kept as servile workers to work on the irrigation.
All of them developed some form of ‘literacy’ or mnemonic devices. All of them developed a social hierarchy of god-kings. And all of them built these enormous vertical architectural structures. And all of them collapsed on meeting other societies. Fascinating…
The ‘Caucasians’ were not always farmers; at one time, they too were hunters/gatherers.
No doubt you can prove that. Or is that a tenet of your religion?
ol hoss – I’m an atheist – I don’t have a religion.
Surely you don’t believe that people began, right from the start of their emergence as ‘homo sapiens’ – as agriculturalists??!!
Our species, homo sapiens, from its origins about 200,000 odd years ago, operated everywhere on earth within a hunting-gathering economy. You can, for example read about this in Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’. Ch. 10 deals with the devt of agriculture, and he says “formerly, all people on earth were hunter-gatherers” (104).
The question then becomes – what happened, why did domestication of plants and animals develop? Diamond specifically says that the transition was ‘not a discovery of food production, nor an invention” (105). This wasn’t a conscious choice or action. But, around 10,000 years ago, active production of food, via the domestication of plants and animals, began, in the ME area. It wasn’t necessarily a better way to live, at first. Bone analysis reveals malnourishment, disease (from having to settle)…
Speculation about why – well, there’s the ‘niche’ theory of people gathering where wild grains are plentiful. But, an important theory (Childe) is that at this time, there was an important climate change – and this led to a change in plant typology.
You can check out Jared Diamond’s works,
and there’s an excellent article by Peter Richerson, Robert Boyd, and Robert Bettinger
3w.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/Origins_Ag_IV3.htm
‘The Origins of Agriculture as a Natural Experiment in Cultural Evolution’.
Their outline is really very good; they also have an excellent set of references.
Their focus is that it was climate change that enabled agriculture to develop.
Again, ALL peoples on this planet were at one time, hunters and gatherers.
Surely you don’t believe that people began, right from the start of their emergence as ‘homo sapiens’ – as agriculturalists??!!
No, only Caucasians.
…he says “formerly, all people on earth were hunter-gatherers” (104).
Whooee, he says that, does he? Must make it true. lol
The problem is, Hoss, that at the start of their emergence as homo sapiens, humans were undifferentiated, ergo there were no caucasians. It is not logically possible to speak of caucasians at the emergence of the species.